Rise of The Wizard Lord
by Weretiger Marduk
Summary: A Russo dead, another vanished, and a dastardly plan. Who is the Wizard-Lord? Where is Alex? The Wizard-Lord has enslaved humanity for one hundred and forty years, and no seems to be able to stop him.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1:Opening Gambit

Disclaimer: I don't own Wizards of Waverly Place.

October 31st 2010, 11:48pm

"So... lemme get this straight," Max Russo looked him in the eye. "You give me this cupcake, that pair of old shoes, one bologna sandwich, four turtles, **and** a box, and you get my magic?" There was a nod. "Yes. Exactly."

Max scoffed. "How dumb do you think I am?" His eyes twinkled.

"Meatball sub."

"Done." The reply was instantaneous. Max grinned from ear to ear. "Alright!" Before Max could do more than attempt a high-five a wand jabbed him roughly in the look of confusion quickly turned to pain as his body stiffened, spasming uncontrollably. The only thing holding him up was the magic emanating from the wand. He collapsed to the ground as a light emerged from his chest, flowing down the wand's length to and into the arm holding it. It dispersed into the holder's body, generating a brief glow throughout his body. He had to take a brief breath to steady himself as his veins coursed with new power.

_Not done yet. one more thing to do before I move on to Alex._ He took another breath, pulling the small handgun he had slaved all summer to buy from the shady dealer three blocks away. The suppressor, however, had to be built. It had taken several tries to make a working one, but it was a crucial component. No one could catch him until it was too late to do anything about it.

Max shuddered as he looked up the barrel of the gun. The light had left his eyes, and he trembled like a drunkard going through detox.

"Why?"

He opened his mouth to answer, then recalled the list. _Too similar. Why is too close 'to tell me your plan'. Just do it. don't think. It's all on the line._

Tears flowed freely down his cheeks as he pulled the trigger. Once. twice. Two in the chest, one in the head. _No way to come back if heart and brain are destroyed. Not even by magic. _Even as he cried, he muttered a spell, causing the gun to turn to ash. He turned as he heard a door downstairs.

_No turning back now._ he sat next to Max's body cradling, Max's head in his lap. No pretending was necessary to display his anguish. Alex tromped up the stairs as uncaring and obnoxious as ever. His anger at her was all that prevented him from giving up now, damn the consequences. "Alex," he called, his voice breaking. She dropped her books on the stairs and hustled up the last few steps at his voice.

Her eyes fell on her youngest brother. "Oh my God, Max!" She rushed to his side, dropping to her knees beside him. "What happened?" He shook his head. "I don't know." He scooted back, allowing her to take Max's head in her hands, closing his eyes and kissing his forehead. Alex heard murmurs behind her.

She was about to ask what he was saying when heavy chains encircled her, dragging her into a standing position. She gasped at him, as a horrifying realization settled on her. "You killed him! You bastard!"

He nodded. "I'm sorry, Alex, but I won't let it happen again. You have no idea what it's like. The emptiness. The longing. I won't let it happen again." Alex railed against her bonds. "You son of a bitch! I'll kill you for this!" He shook his head. "No you won't. I stole his magic with your wand. Here," He stuck the wand snugly between the chains she was bound with. "You'll need that where you're going. The magic signature of it's use will be enough." Alex suddenly narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"It's perfect. You killed Max with wrought iron bullets, knowing that the defenses for underage wizards wouldn't stop them, then fled to the darkest, most horrible world you could think of when you realized that you wouldn't get away with it. A place so dangerous not even the most powerful wizards would dare to hunt for you to bring you to justice."

She spit at him. "Somewhere they wouldn't come looking for the truth." He nodded. Had that darkness, that coldness, always been in his eyes? Had she simply missed it because she wasn't looking for it? His spell lifted her into the air, carrying her to his newly opened portal, which crackled with a sinister energy, opening onto a bleak and harsh wasteland beyond.

"Goodbye Alex," He said, almost apologetically. "For what it's worth, the quasi-demonic creatures on that plane should kill you fairly quickly, so you won't die of stavation."

Working her hand free of the chains at last, Alex showed him her middle finger. "Fuck you, Justin." Her brother only sighed in relief as the hole in the air closed, like a long day of work had finally ended. In a quiet voice he sang to himself. "Everything is not what it seems."

_Don't come back, Alex. Don't ever come back._

November 1st 2010, 12:01 am

Reviews would be appreciated. Too dark? Tell me what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:Ascendance

Disclaimer: I don't own Wizards of Waverly Place.

author's note: I took a bit of creative license with some of this, background data was kinda hard to find...or maybe I'm an idiot. Anyway, if I get something wrong, tell me and I'll rewrite. Thanks.

"I'm sorry, mr. Russo," the elderly wizard spoke to Justin in the wizard's court chambers. "Since neither our Justicars nor the mortal witch-hunters are foolish enough to enter the Scarred Outlands to retrieve your sister, we can't retrieve her, either for a wizard competition, or to strip her of her powers. We will award you wizardom, of course, but the magic of that terrible place won't allow us to empower you with you bloodline's full potential."

Justin tried to mask his seething with disappointment. He was so livid he could hardly speak. "I..I understand, sir, thank you." The old fool smiling condescendingly down on him patted him on the shoulder. "You will make a fine wizard, mr. Russo." Justin nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Justin nodded, patting the old man on the shoulder as he departed. He couldn't help but chuckle a bit as he exited the building.

_That old bastard will go straight to the wizard council to make his report. It's all coming together so well. No one will ever be able to take my magic from me again. Just have to wait. _

Alex Russo collapsed to the ground, barely catching herself as she fell through the portal. it was only the tiniest of victories that the chain's Justin had conjured literally unraveled as she passed through the portal. _Thank God for small mercies._ "Well," she said to the cracked red earth as she stood up and dusted herself off, "Here goes nothing." Holding her wand up, Alex cleared her throat.

"**I'm greedy, it's true, I want the magic that passed through you**." There was a flash of light as the wand glowed brilliantly from within. As she watched, the tip of her wand became dull and disintegrated as the magic held within it flowed out of the other end and into Alex's arm, lighting it's path up her arm and into her chest.

"I love being the sneakiest member of my family." After the wizard's competition she'd guessed that he'd start boning up on his wand work to beat her in the for real version next time around, so she'd enchanted her wand to absorb magic with the intention of switching them secretly. Her chest tightened as she felt a little piece of Max in the new magic she was absorbing. Holding a hand to her chest, she quietly swore, "I'll get him for this Max. You deserved so much better." Dusting the last ashes of her wand off of her hand, she allowed a couple of tears to slide down her cheeks before she roughly wiped them away. _No. No more crying, not for anything. I've gotta toughen up if I'm gonna survive this place and get back to kill him._ The enormity of her task almost sat her on her rump right then. Instead she steadied herself, cast an irritated eye at the enormous sun above her, and began walking in a random direction. _Food, water, shelter. There's gotta be a reason no one will come here. And I bet it has teeth._

Three days later...

Alex Russo stood on top of the rocky outcropping,tiny green plants at her feet, fire blazing in both hands, as she stared down the three dog-like things that had ambushed her shortly after she'd tried to sleep. "Come on! Just try it!" She screamed like a madman as she flung fireball after fireball at the creatures, singing the hairless flesh coated in the ever-present red dust that her new home had in abundance. The noise they made when she caught one with her fire came out as a snarl-yelp that made the hair on her arms stand up.

They kept circling, trying to get behind her, but she kept the rocks to her back and blasted her sides with flame whenever one came to nip at her heels. _I've got these two bastards. Wait, two? Oh shit_. She turned to face the third that had snuck over the rocks just as it leapt.

She caught it in both hands as they both went down, and she felt something wet on her face and a sharp stinging. It opened it's mouth to bite her face off as the other two came nearer, sensing the kill...

And the one atop her howled as flames burst from it, charbroiling it and causing it to breath fire into the face of one of the others. The second yelp-snarled and backed away, the last trailing it. Alex pulled her hands from it's belly, dripping with gore, as the blood rolled off of her face. "C'mon you bastards! C'mon, it's free for the taking you chickenshit demon mutts!" The voice she heard was scarcely recognizable, hamperede as it was by her cracked lips and swollen tongue, courtesy of the waterless desert. The other two... _I'll calm them Helldogs_ ...glanced at each other before whirling around and charging the other direction, into the setting sun, yelp-snarling. The sound carried across the vast desert, but it no longer bothered her like it had a minute ago.

With an exhausted sigh she plopped down, almost crushing some of the green growth that survived the brutal sun by using the shelter of the rocky outcropping. She pulled a leaf off of the nearest plant, having already used magic to make sure it wasn't poisonous. _The plants aren't hostile,_ she grinned wryly around the leaf, _it's just everything bigger than a plant that wants to kill me._

the scent of the roasted meat made her stomach gurgle, half from the disgusting smell, and half..._No. No way am I going to eat that thing._ Her stomach growled in protest, as though to say**_ 'yes, you're going to eat that. I bet it tastes like chicken. Try some, just a little._**'

Alex had always obeyed her stomach, and she groaned as she crawled towards the roasted Helldog. peeling a bit off, she nibbled some of the inside, trying her best not to gag or eat any dirt on the outside. "Huh, maybe I should call them porkdogs instead, tastes a little like bacon." She smiled darkly, a far cry from the sweet and mischievous smiles others had seen on her. It made the perfectly straight vertical line the Helldog had cut from her eyebrow to just below the newly formed bags begin to bleed again. She winced. _That's gonna leave a mark.  
_

_Meanwhile..._

The chambers of the Council of wizards. A massive circular room that seems part cathedral, part mausoleum _._ The domed ceiling of the room was barely visible from the floor. Only sitting in one of the massive armchairs placed upon an elevated dais allowed the constellation murals to be viewed, and then only faintly. the sheer size of the dark stone room swallowed sound until a library-like silence pervaded.

Justin strolled down the marble inset path leading from the open doors. He cast his eyes over the twelve men slumped in their chairs as well as one laying upon the hard marble, looks of horror on every frozen face. He whistled a tune to himself as he casually tossed a wrought iron church fence spike from hand to hand swinging halfway, then releasing his improvised weapon before releasing and catching it with the other hand.

"Everything is not what it seems."

The pointed spike held a sinister gleam on the blood-coated sharp end. As he walked he ran the spike into the face down head of the elderly wizard who'd bestowed wizardhood on him earlier that day.

One by one, he finished off the most powerful men in the wizarding world. As he came to the last still living body in the room. A feeble hand clutched his pants leg. He looked down into the terrified eyes of the senior-most wizard. "W-Why?" The word fell from his mouth, as though it hadn't the effort to make it to Justin's ears. He leaned down anyway, putting his face naxt to the wizard's. As the spike impaled the man to the floor Justin's hushed voice resonated throuth the room. "Never again. Never."

He stood fully as he heard the thundering of many booted feet coming towards the chamber doors. _Not time yet. Not ready for them._ He quickly pulled a disposable cell phone with a small attachment from his pocket. Pressing a small button on the side of the phone, he dialed a number. **Help me travel on my own, I need to get there through this phone.**

Justin rapidly emerged from the phone on the other end, much to the irritation of a woman leading her children past the entrance to the building that was currently being swarmed by at least two dozen Justicars. Justin dumped the phone into a ziploc bag just before it dissolved into goo. Sealing the bag, he dropped it into a nearby trashcan as he made his way toward the pair of Justicars standing watch outside the doors. "Gentlemen. Anything I can do to help?" One shook his head. "Move along, young wizard, we have the situation under control." Justin nodded. "Of course you do. Keep up the good work, gentlemen." As he walked down the street towards home he whistled a lively tune to himself.

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	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:All Too Easy

Disclaimer: I don't own Wizards of Waverly Place.

_Three years later..._

Justin smiled as he sat on his throne. It wasn't called a throne, but he knew that's what it was. It was a high backed, armed chair that presided over the dais where the former wizard's council had been. _Before I stopped them._ He had Charmed the Justicars, using a forbidden spell and a bit of each Justicar, He'd hive-minded them all with the dark spell, then bound it to him. He controlled the Justicars, the Justicars controlled the world leaders, and they controlled the masses. A few years of already worked out machinations, and he was poised to shift the balance of the whole world.

He expected resistance, of course. But that was what the wizarding police were for. Nothing quelled a riot like a city block being vaporized. It had worked in bringing the rest of the wizards around to his way of thinking. But then, when the city block hosts Wiztech, parents tended to be a little easier to sway. But that wouldn't stop him. Nothing would. He couldn't let it happen again.

_At the same time, in the Scarred Outlands_

A tall, well built woman slunk silently through the rocks, eyes focusing on what was ahead of her. anyone who had ever known Alex Russo would have been hard-pressed to recognize her as the dark-haired huntress stalked her prey.

All the fat had long been worked off of her, giving her the lean, wiry look of an athlete, and the sharp angular features that she'd been so jealous of on the girls at school had been granted by time and life in the farthest corner of the Outlands. Her long, dark hair, the only concession she'd made to retain her former self, was fixed into a tight bun and was held in place by what appeared to be a pair of eight inch long animal teeth. Her legs had lengthened in a growth spurt that had left her aching for the whole week it had lasted. Her breasts hadn't gotten much bigger, but she took that as a blessing. Dressed in the tanned hides of several creatures specific to the plane, she radiated confidence, strength, and grace. She smiled as she remembered when she had decided to craft her clothing to look similar to old cowboy garb, including leather chaps, a vest, and even a long duster for warding off the night chill while she wandered.

_I'll have to thank Mr. Laritate for forcing me to do that detention making cowboy outfits with him. _She no longer worried about getting back, she was sure she could do it. She had found human remains on a couple of occasions, leading her to believe that there wer more portals home. _Just gotta find an open one. Or a locus point to make my own._ It has surprised her, how easily she could pull energy for her spellwork from the scant half dozen lay lines on the planet. It had been difficult at first, but after the first day, she was casting just as well as she'd been at home.

Even as she daydreamed, she scanned the area, alert for anything that would try to get her or her next meal for itself. That was another thing that bothered her. The creatures here were so **smart**. They'd learned after a while that if she went hungry, she hunted until she'd made the difference.

And she wasn't picky about what she ate. The last of the Helldog trio had been the first to make the connection. After she'd gone looking for the other two, they last one had left her several kills, untouched except for fight wounds. The meaning was clear.

**Eat_ them_ instead.**

She shook herself into wariness as she encountered the Hisser. It made a loud noise like someone trying to scare a cat before it pounced, so she'd named it a Hisser. She wanted it's hide for a new duster for one primary reason. It had deflected her spells. Anything magic had simply glided off it's hide without so much as scratching it. _I'll need that against Justin. _ The short spear in her hand was crude, having been crafted from a long leg bone, a Helldog canine, and some sinew. Thank god for mr. Laritate. As the Hisser came in sight around the rock, she closed her eyes and snapped her fingers.

A blast of light blinded the night-hunter, and four hundred pounds of muscle began frantically clawing at the air in front of it, attempting to catch the creature that had hurt it.

Alex smiled as she darted to the side and slid her homemade spear horizontally into it's throat, puncturing it's major artery and severing the dual spines that made it so hard to bring down. It collapsed on the ground, dying quickly.

Completely abandoning her tough hunter demeanor, she reverted back to the old Alex as she jumped into the air. "Yes! I did it!" Her smile faltered as she remembered the only people she would have shared her victory with weren't there with her.

She traced the scar over her left eye absently with a finger, hunching over the Hisser and pulling a small, hand-crafted knife from her belt. "C'mon buddy, let's get this over with. You'll smell alot less like Max's room when I'm done with you." She sighed a sigh that the dust of the Outlands was quite familiar with.

Reviews would be great.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:Changes

Disclaimer: I don't own Wizards of Waverly Place.

_Seven years later..._

She strolled through the busy hallways, unable to suppress a merry smile as the sea of people parted around her, reforming in her wake. she wore the black uniform of the disbanded Justicars, accentuated with two or three dozen buttons, from smiley faces to one proclaiming 'Justin for President' in large letters. Her long red hair cascading down her back. _He liked it that way._ She tucked a stray lock behind her ear as she approached the massive double doors of His audience room.

She took a deep breath before she gave one of the Royal guards standing at the door a nod. She suppressed a shiver at the guards. Justin said they were necessary, and she trusted him, believed in him, but they had made her nervous since she had first laid eyes on them.

_ She had shook like a leaf in the wind when they came for her_, _and she had watched as more of them had pulled the Russos away from her. Except Justin. Justin had stepped in front of her and held up a hand. **"Not this one."** They had simply turned away from her, unblinking, grabbing up Jerry and Theresa and hauling them away. "Justin?" Her voice had trembled, and he'd smiled and taken her into his arms. "I want to show you something, something wonderful that I want you to be a part of."_

_And he had kissed her forehead and she'd just known that everything was alright and it was okay and nothing horrible was happening because Justin was there and if he wanted her to be part of something then she'd follow him into hell as long as he held her and looked at her like that then it would all work out somehow._

The reality had set in afterwords: that Alex had done something horrible and that Justin, her sweet, caring, dorky Justin, was changing the world in ways that people had promised on but never delivered, that he was going to stop it from ever happening again. And he'd asked her to be a part of it. He'd told her he trusted her and he wanted her with him for as long as it took for everything to be alright.

She knew he wasn't in love with her, but maybe he loved her, and that was enough.

Justin smiled as he looked into Harper's eyes when she walked into the audience chamber. _his_ chamber. He shook his head. _Their_ chamber. She was a part of this now. Harper. He'd almost missed it, but he had put it all together just before his enforcers had come for the rest of the family.

_Harper had come rushing in, slamming the door shut and rushing to his side. She'd placed a hand on his arm and attempted to drag him into the kitchen. "Justin," she'd managed between breaths._ "_You have to hide! These wizard guys are pulling everyone out of their houses and taking them somewhere_! _"They just drag them into this big fence in the street and teleport them somewhere_. _"You have to hide. I'll try and keep them out long enough for you to get your wand and spell out._" _It had taken the determined look on her face to click it all together in his brain. She **cared**. About him, specifically. She was ready to hold off his Justicars in order for him to escape, without even asking for him to save her. "Why me?" He'd asked her._

_She'd looked at him like he was dense. "Because I love you."_

_And he'd decided._

_"Mom! Dad!" The sound of their footsteps on the linoleum had coincided with the door opening. His parents had fought, of course. Tooth and nail. But cookware turned towards violence wasn't enough to stop his minions anymore. they had been powerful before, now they weren't really human anymore. Still, it took several of them to subdue the pair. When two moved to take Harper for conditioning, he'd intervened. _

_**"Not this one." **His command resonated through the binding he'd placed on them. And they had obeyed. Like he knew they would. He'd comforted Harper, certain that she'd understand. And it would be good to have someone to share this with._

And it had been. Harper was devoted, determined, and unshakable in her loyalty to him. In return, he'd given her the tasks he trusted no one else with, and done the one thing she'd craved. He'd accepted her, believed in her, and he had every confidence that she'd return it a thousandfold.

_I'll give it to her, too_. _She's too valuable to allow her to wither away with time. _

As she climbed the dais he winked at her. "Do you want to live forever?" She looked at him for a minute, trying to tell if he was joking. She flashed him a smile and spoke barely over a whisper. "Only if it's with you."

Satisfied, he took her hand in his. It promised to be a **very** interesting reign.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:Law and Lawlessness

Disclaimer: I don't own Wizards of Waverly Place.

_thirty years after the rise of the Wizard-Lord(Forty years after Alex's disappearance)_

The Hub was named thus because it bordered every dimension known at one place or another. In short, a traveler could get anywhere from the Hub, and could get from anywhere **to** the Hub. This of course assumes that you can somehow provide the magic push required to connect the two locations to generate the portal(this was referred to as 'forcing the door' by the travelers). This fact was a generally acknowledged annoyance by the locals, and it produced both trade and grumbling in equal measure.

So it was received with very little surprise (and not a little grumbling) when a young woman dropped out of the air directly above a main thoroughfare of the Hub's capital city.

"Ow." Alex had time to stand before the sharp yell of "Get out of the road!" caused her to look around in alarm. She staggered to a cobbled sidewalk, taking in the city as she tried not to rub shoulders with any of her fellow pedestrians.

The city was an alarming clash of styles, most of which she couldn't distinguish, let alone identify. Buildings stacked haphazardly atop one another gave the otherwise impressive metropolis a ramshackle appearance. The sidewalk, like the street, was cobbled stone, seemingly ripped out of some medieval town and placed here for the use of the inhabitants.

Alex walked through the streets, using her spear as a walking stick. As she walked she stared at the inhabitants crowding the sidewalk, the street, and seemingly peering out of every window and door. Her fellow pedestrians gave her a wide berth, which suited her just fine.

_Must be the outfit. _She scanned the dizzying assortment of creatures, some almost normal, some decidedly not so. Her pondering was cut short as a tantalizing smell wafted through the air. _Meat. and... is that bread? Oh, yeah, I'm getting some of that. _She crossed the street, halting in front of a small shop displaying the food she sought in the front window. It looked almost exactly like Ms Mooney's pie shop from Sweeney Todd except the letters on the window were squiggles that looked like a baby's scrawl. Next door a large bull man was working a hammer on some metal in a forge. He caught her eye while she stared at him before she headed into the shop. A bell rang overhead as she stepped through the door, spear in hand. The guy...ish behind the counter looked like a cross between a man and a frog. Alex didn't particularly care as long as he'd sell to her.

"Hey." He glanced up at her greeting. His already massive eyes got bigger as he took her in. "I want some of that meat and whatever bread type stuff you have." The creature croaked curtly at her, not blinking. "Crap. Hold on." She poked herself behind the ear sharply, discharging a bit of magic. "One more time?"

His voice was a gravelly baritone as he said in perfectly understandable English, "Money first." She patted her pockets for a moment before an idea struck her. She held the spear out in front of him. "Trade?"

The frog guy waddled around the counter before squatting and staring intently at the spear. The door opened with a chime. The frog glanced at the new customer before holding out it's flipper to her. "De-"

"NO." The rumbling bass of the bull man almost shook the glass in the window. It approached Alex, interposing itself between her and her meal ticket. "Human. Quality. Magic. Will pay you **fair**" he glanced at the frog in contempt, "To sell to me, maybe make more?" The last part of the statement was tinged with hopefulness. She shrugged. "How much is it worth?"

The Minotaur opened a pouch on the broad leather belt he wore and extracted a small bag. Opening it, he produced a sapphire, easily as big as one of her thumbs. "Ten." She nodded. "One condition." He snorted, his white fur ruffling in the breeze. "I'llsplit profits with you, but you provide the materials...and lodgings." He cocked his head to the side. She shrugged again. "I need a place to stay."

He snorted again, then nodded. taking her small hand in his massive one, he shook firmly. _Well that was easy._

_One year later... _

Alex roused herself by the starlight and crept stealthily from her cot above Asterion's forge. Her frame had filled out a little from the manuel labor, but she remained as fast and quiet as ever. _He'll be asleep until sunrise at least._ She wanted to have his gift done before he woke up. After finding out that his 6,037th birthday was coming up, she'd worked behind his back the whole week(kinda hard when she was using his forge) to make him a birthday gift. Finding out exactly when his birthday was coming up had been a chore, though, he had some issues grasping the difference between week, month, year, and century.

To most, the white gold nose ring she had made to replace his old gold one would look pretty, but little else. She'd disguised her magic by hiding it deep within the ore. While this limited what she could enchant it with, she wasn't looking for flashy.

She'd scratched her head over the spell she wanted for a while before she'd worked out how to do it. She'd made a spell that would give someone's skin the hardness of a metal in contact with them, but not the appearance. She'd tried it out first with a pair of earrings, which had worked spectacularly, so she'd done it again, ordering a fist full of starmetal that had set her back quite a bit. _It'll be worth it to know he'll be okay._ It had turned out that hiring her on was unhealthy for him after he'd been attacked in the street. Since then he'd worn massive armor whenever he went out, and he carried his forging hammer on his belt. So she'd made a new pair of earrings and his nose ring of starmetal, hiding it under the white gold, using what he'd taught her in the past year. She'd finished the ring last night, now all that was left was to put her mark on it. She considered the options for a while, then decided on a simple design. She etched a broken wand,split in half, one half on each side of a flame. She etched the final curl of the miniscule flame just as dawn broke. she studied her handiwork for a minute, then smiled, satisfied. She polished it with her shirt, nodding to herself. _He'll like it, I'm sure_.

As she turned to sneak upstairs she heard a creak behind her. She froze until a voice rang out. "Can still see you." she sighed, holding her hands in front of her as she turned. "I was gonna wrap it for you and give it to you for your birthday, but you already caught me. Besides, I wanna see your expression." She opened her hands, revealing her creation. He sniffed it as he gently took it from her hands. "Good work," he said appreciatively. "Too heavy for just gold. Core?" She nodded proud of the complement. "Yup, but I'm not telling. Oh, and I marked it. I finally decided on my smith-mark."

He held it close to his eyes for a few seconds,turning it this way and that so it caught the light. When the light hit her mark, his eyes almost popped out of his head. Almost dropping the ring, he stared at Alex. "Where find this?" She shrugged. "I made it," she said, uncertain. "Why? What's wrong with it?" He slapped himself in the head. "Apocrypha. Mean hidden, more or less." He looked her over like he was appraising her in a new light. "Should have known. Too special too stay." Alex was confused. "What?" The minotaur turned, heading upstairs. "Have something for you." He clomped up the steps, muttering to himself. He returned shortly, bearing a dusty box under one arm.

"For you." Asterion handed her the box. "What's this?" He snorted. "Human came here month back. Had baby. Sent baby back. Stayed to die." He gestured at the box. "Picture. Should have known box was for you." Curious, she opened the three foot long chest. Inside were a pair of cloth wrapped objects, one about a foot and a half long and the other nearly filling the box from end to end. Both rested beneath a worn picture. Alex lifted it out of the box. It was a sepia photo of...her. Dressed in old cowboy garb, holding a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a revolver in the other, smiling along with half a dozen assorted guys.

Carefully unwrapping the objects, she revealed the two guns in the picture. They both bore her smith-mark, done in a careful and practiced hand on the bottom of the grips. 'Alex' was written down the barrel of the six-gun.

"Wh-Who was she?" Asterion shrugged. "Said call her Alex Apocrypha."

"Hidden Alex?" He snorted, nodding once.

A disconcertingly familiar voice behind her almost shocked her out of her skin.

"You bet your sweet ass, honey." Alex turned to look into the eyes of the woman in the picture. "Who- What-"

The older woman clicked her tongue. "C'mon, hon," she said with a mischievous smile. "Is that any way to say hello to your great-Grandmama?"

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